Furious locals took to the streets of Alicante on Friday night in a dramatic protest against mass tourism, claiming their city is being hollowed out by soaring rents, vanishing housing, and the relentless rise of short-term lets. Around 1,000 demonstrators marched through the Costa Blanca capital, brandishing banners in English aimed squarely at holidaymakers.
Messages included: ‘We serve you beers but can’t pay the rent’, ‘I’m a neighbour, not an extra at your theme park’, and ‘We’re not your photo backdrop, this is our home’. One protester wore a bright yellow T-shirt emblazoned with the blunt message: ‘Tourist go home, thank you’. The march began outside 80 Mundos, Alicante’s oldest bookshop, which is being forced to vacate its premises after the building was sold to a Madrid-based developer.
The site is now earmarked for tourist apartments—an outcome activists say is symbolic of everything wrong with the city’s transformation.
Jordi Arnes, a spokesman for the organisers ‘Alicante donde vas’ (‘Alicante, where are you going?’), said: “The case of 80 Mundos shows how deep the problem runs. A building can be sold regardless of who lives or works there—even if it’s a local institution.”
He said: “It’s happening over and over again. Tourists come in. Locals get pushed out.”
Another organiser added: “We protested last year about the same issue—touristification, the disappearance of affordable homes, families driven out, and small businesses being wiped off the map.”
The crowd moved through the city centre behind a massive banner reading: ‘Alicante no se vende’—‘Alicante is not for sale’.
At the end of the march, a manifesto was read aloud. One speaker declared: “The closure of 80 Mundos is the straw that broke the camel’s back. This is no longer just about inconvenience. It’s about survival.”
They added: “The flood of tourists doesn’t stop. But for the people who actually live here, it’s getting harder and harder to live with dignity.”
It marked the third major protest organised by Alicante donde vas, following two others held in July and October last year.
Anger over tourism isn’t limited to Alicante. Spain has seen a wave of unrest across key destinations including Majorca, Tenerife and Barcelona, as well as parts of Italy.
On June 15, thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Palma, Majorca’s capital, just hours after activists in Barcelona armed with water pistols confronted tourists in a day of co-ordinated demonstrations across southern Europe.
That same weekend, cities like Granada, San Sebastian and even parts of Italy saw similar rallies.
In Palma, activists from Menys Turisme, Mes Vida (Less Tourism, More Life) shut down a sightseeing bus and later surrounded a luxury restaurant—Cappuccino Borne—next to McDonald’s in the city centre. Around 100 demonstrators banged drums, waved placards reading ‘As you come, I have to go’, and chanted in English: ‘Go home’ and ‘The streets will always be ours’.
One protester also shouted: “No balconing!”—a dig at the notorious trend of young British tourists jumping from hotel balconies in party resorts like Magaluf.
Police eventually stepped in to calm tensions.
After the Palma protest, Balearic Islands vice-president Antoni Costa condemned what he called “unacceptable” behaviour. Officials claimed 8,000 people attended—but organisers insisted it was closer to 30,000.
The protests appear to be gaining momentum across Spain—and Friday’s scenes in Alicante suggest locals in tourist-heavy cities have had enough.